March 2024 – Traveling through small Baja towns

Continuing our travels north, we hustled through a series of small towns so that we could get up to Ensenada before the end of the month. The week before Easter is known as Semana Santa, and the week after is known as Semana de Pascua. Collectively, these two weeks are the most popular time for Mexicans to go on vacation, so we wanted to settle into Ensenada ahead of Easter to give us some flexibility with any crowds and also allow us to have one more long stay before we head back to the U.S.

To be honest, we typically don’t like travelling so fast. We wanted to stay at least 4-5 nights in each spot, but that wasn’t possible, and it seemed like we were always packing or unpacking. Also, by moving so frequently, our costs go up because we don’t find great lodging deals and we condense the same amount of exploration and excursions into a shorter period of time. Last, because we like to spend our time getting to know each place, we don’t take as much downtime on short stays, and feel a bit more worn out compared to our longer stays. But for your entertainment, and our own future reference, here are our thoughts:

Posada Concepción (Bahiá Concepción)

When we were driving south in November, we passed some beautiful blue-green water along the coast of the Sea of Cortez. We immediately knew that we wanted to return to this area, even for just a few days. Initially, we thought about spending a couple of weeks in the small town of Mulegé, and driving 25 minutes south to the Bay of Conception for afternoon beach visits. As we thought a bit more about the views and why we wanted to experience that area, we decided to find lodging near the bay itself.

Sunrise view in Posada

We booked 4 nights in a very nice casita on a hillside overlooking the bay, in a small community known as Posada Concepción. The place was too large for us, with two full bedrooms and bathrooms. It had a nice kitchen area, a small attached patio, a large rooftop patio, Starlink internet, and was one of the few dog-friendly places to be found. It was also the first place in the past 5 months with a detachable shower head, so we were able to give Gunner a bath! The condo was in a beautiful spot, but we paid a premium for it – just under $1,000 for our 4-night stay! (Truth be told, we wanted to treat ourselves to a place that we wouldn’t normally book, so we splurged and didn’t look back!) We booked through Airbnb, though I did look on booking.com to see if the place was listed there. I have since learned some additional tricks, using a Google image search, or even just Google Maps. If we had booked directly, the stay would still have been expensive, but I think I could have saved at least 20%. Our host, Adam, was very nice, and offered the use of his paddleboards. We declined, because we’ve never paddleboarded before, and the weather was pretty windy – not ideal conditions for learning. We did enjoy sitting on the patio and were able to watch dolphins feeding in the bay early in the morning.

As a destination, Posada Concepción is tiny. The shoreline is dotted with permanent structures and lots of RVs. Some areas look like they’ve seen better days, likely never repaired after one of the many hurricane events that have hit the peninsula. There are 4 restaurants, 1 small mini-mart, and no gas stations along this 5-mile stretch of coastline. Most of the restaurants were pretty average, with our favorite being the Bar Donkey, on Playa El Burro, where we stopped just before our arrival at our condo. Seeing few restaurants and businesses in Google Maps, we made sure to stock up on groceries and drinking water before coming here. The area is fairly remote, and we were surprised to find no cell service, though we had wifi at our condo and we discovered that almost every restaurant provides free wifi as well.

Hidden Beach

We spent our days here exploring the nearby beaches. On our first day, we went a mile south to Playa Escondida (Hidden Beach), where we found a small beach, half-full with RVs. It seems that local entrepreneurs have been granted concessions to manage these beaches, installing a bit of infrastructure, and giving them rights to charge access fees for day or overnight use. (No day-use charge at Hidden Beach, at least when we were there. And theoretically we had free access to the bay by walking down the steep hill from our condo, but we never checked that out.) We explored the shell-covered Hidden Beach and then spent some time at the small Hidden Bar, which makes the best margarita that Sandy has found in Mexico! We got their recipe, which included Cabrito Tequila, which we were able to find a bit later in our trip.

On our second day, we drove 20 minutes south to Playa Requeson. We wanted to check out this large, RV-filled area, and planned for a longer stay because we knew they charged a fee for day-use. We paid 150 pesos ($9 USD), which allowed us to choose any open beach front area and access to the bathrooms. We stayed about 4 hours, exploring the beach and waterfront areas. Some people played in the calm, knee-deep water, but we didn’t feel like getting wet. Temperatures were in the 70’s, and we actually felt a bit cold when the breeze would pick up.

So many RVs on Playa Santispac

On our third day, we went 1 mile north to Playa Santispac, where we were asked to pay 200 pesos for day use. When I explained that we were mostly interested in eating lunch and taking a short walk on the beach, I was able to negotiate 100 pesos ($6 USD) for our access. This beach was the most crowded of the three (so many RVs!), but it explains how they can support two full-time restaurants.

When not out exploring beaches or enjoying the views from the patios, we enjoyed our first-ever stay with Starlink internet. It was fast and reliable, and handled all of our streaming needs easily, including a video call with our accountant to complete our tax return. We also subscribe to a cloud backup service, and I was able to use it for the first time in 4-5 months to sync all of our pictures and files from our portable drive. If we needed a constant internet provider on the road, I would definitely consider Starlink’s mobile plan.

Other than lodging, our spending was limited to food and entertainment. Food costs were elevated, but not unreasonable in Posada Concepción. We stocked up on breakfast items – cereal, boxed milk, and fruit – before leaving Loreto. Individual meals were priced around 200 pesos ($12 USD) for chicken or beef, and 300 pesos ($18 USD) for seafood. Beers were 40-50 pesos ($2.50-$3.00 USD) and mixed drinks around 100 pesos ($6 USD). We were surprised to find use fees at the beaches – all beaches in Mexico are considered public land and businesses are not supposed to prevent access, so I’m not certain how the concessions in this area work. Total spending excluding lodging was between 600-700 pesos ($36-$42 USD) per day.

Almost everyone we met was from somewhere else – mostly the United States or Canada – and most of them were camping or living in an RV. The rates can’t be beat – only 150-200 pesos ($6-$9 USD) per night for beachfront property.

We enjoyed our short visit to Posada Concepción. It’s a very quiet and peaceful spot with beautiful views, and it’s easy to see why so many people spend their winters here. We could see ourselves spending more time here, possibly up to a month, but would likely start cooking more of our own meals, knowing that restaurant options are limited, just mediocre, and a bit expensive. We would also need to drive 30 minutes north to Mulegé for groceries and laundry, or 1.5 hours south to Loreto for more shopping and dining options. As long as we had good internet for streaming TV and to offset the lack of cell service, I think we’d be satisfied.

Mulegé

Date palms in Mulegé

After our 4-night stay in Posada Concepción, we took a short 25-minute drive north to Mulegé (pronounced moo-luh-HEY), a small town situated in a unique jungle-like oasis at the intersection of a small river and the Sea of Cortez. The river valley is filled with date palms, giving the town an interesting, tropical look.

Because of our short drive, we had a lot of time to fill between checking out of one condo and into a new one. We started by visiting another of the old Baja missions – the Misión Santa Rosalía de Mulegé. The mission has been nicely restored, and we were able to explore the inside, as well as the grounds around the building. There is also a small mirador (lookout point) overlooking the river. After that stop, we drove out to Mulegé’s small beach. There were some nice palapas large enough to park and sit under, so we were able to relax out of the hot sun.

Our lodging in Mulegé was in a detached casita next to our hosts’ home. We considered a few different pet-friendly options, but made our final decision based on location – our casita was on the same side of the river as the main town, whereas others would have meant driving and crossing the river to get into town. The casita was very small – really just a small room with a breakfast bar and attached half-bath. Oddly, we had to shower in the pool shower downstairs. Since we were the only guests, it wasn’t a problem, just different. The space was really too small for us, and we had a half-flight of stairs outside our door which were a bit too steep for Gunner. He did ok, but struggled whenever we took him out. The most unique feature of the casita was the osprey nest approximately 20 feet from our window. The casita sat on a hill, and the owners had constructed a nesting structure atop an old palm tree trunk. We had a great eye-level view to the nest, where a pair of ospreys appeared to be tending to some eggs (hatching would reportedly be around the end of March).

The casita was our second chance to use Starlink. The signal was good, but occasionally intermittent, probably due to the concrete walls interfering with the wifi signal from the main house. Also, our room did not have a TV, so we ended up streaming through my laptop. As with Posada, our options in Mulegé were limited, and we spent $115 per night on Airbnb for this tiny casita. Reinforcing my lesson from Posada Concepción, we found a sign on the outer gate offering the location for $80 per night. Sandy and I have discussed that we’ll add a step when booking our lodging - once we’ve narrowed down our listings, we’ll do some searching to see what options are available with direct-booking.

Our casita was in a good location for walking Gunner. We were about a block from a main road, which was never busy. It was easy to walk Gunner towards town and back each morning and again in the evening. Walking all the way to town took about 30 minutes, which Sandy and I did on our first full day in town. Mulegé is full of confusing one-way streets, but traffic is nearly non-existent and it was easy to walk or drive around. We explored the town square, garden, and church, before having lunch and doing some grocery shopping. There were a few options for groceries, but none were fully stocked. We bounced through a few stores to get our groceries, plus a bottle of wine for admission to a dog rescue event (more on that later). There is an old prison/museum in town that sounded interesting, but were weren’t able to line up our schedule with their hours of operation.

The following day, we drove 45 minutes north to the larger town of Santa Rosalía, known for its extensive mining history, and where copper mining operations continue on today. Founded by the French, Santa Rosalía has a unique appearance. Most of the buildings have tin roofs instead of tile, and most of the exteriors are clapboard siding instead of concrete. We started our day by finding a historic French bakery, the Panadería El Boleo, baking world famous bread since 1901. The clerk laughed a bit as we pointed to items in the display case, finally buying 8 different breads and donuts for 171 pesos ($10 USD). Sandy liked their famed “pitahaya” sweet bread pastry, but I found it to be dry and lacking in flavor. Due to poor communication with the clerk, we ended up with one duplicate item – a lemon poundcake, which ended up being our favorite of the mix.

Eiffel's church

After the bakery, we explored some historic buildings, including a steel-framed church designed by Gustave Eiffel – the famous designer of a small tower in Paris. After exploring the church, we headed to the city park, where Sandy sat with Gunner while I walked up a hill to visit the historic mining museum. The museum focused on the history of the Boleo Mining Company, with exhibits featuring old photos, typewriters, desks, books, and other company equipment. After the museum, I went back down the hill to explore four short mining tunnels, filled with more mining photos and exhibits. Both locations had a small fee of 30 pesos ($1.80 USD), and are recommended stops in town. On the way home, we visited an old headframe for one of the copper mines, though I was disappointed by the lack of signage or explanation of the site.

On our third day in Mulegé, we took a nice tour to some nearby cave paintings, known as San Borjitas. To be honest, it was a little difficult to set up this tour. We got some contact information from our host, and while the tour guide was initially very responsive, we had a hard time confirming an actual date for our tour. The guide, Salvador, seemed to be the only option in town, and once scheduled, everything went flawlessly. We started with a 30-minute van ride north along the highway, followed by a 2.5 hour drive down dirt and rough cobble roads.

San Borjitas cave paintings

We made a stop to check in at a local ranch, then drove the final 20 minutes to a parking area. From there, it was a short 10-minute walk to a large cave under an overhanging rock wall. The ceiling of the cave was covered with vivid prehistoric art – mostly human figures, along with some deer, fish, and other animals, most in red or black, with occasional yellow or white. Salvador was very knowledgeable about the art and gave us plenty of time to look around and take photos before showing us a smaller site on the other side of the valley. We then walked back to our van for a picnic lunch, followed by another bouncy drive back to Mulegé. The tour was very expensive by our standards – 2,200 pesos ($130 USD) each, plus we added a 500-peso tip at the end of the tour. But we found the paintings very interesting, and we’re pretty sure that the majority of our fees would be used to maintain the suspension and tires on Salvador’s van.

On our final day in Mulegé, the weather started to change on us. We had enjoyed sunny days with temps in the 70’s, but ended our stay with a cloudy, windy, cooler day. We planned another beach day, but only stayed about an hour because we both got a little chilled.

Making use of the mini-fridge in our room, our daily breakfast consisted of cereal, milk, and fruit. For lunch/dinner, we enjoyed a good mix of restaurants during our short stay. We found a good brewery south of town – Mulegé Brewing. We enjoyed their beers, but thought their food was overpriced for the portion sizes. We found a better brewery – Padre Santo – in Santa Rosalía. I had a great tropical cheeseburger, which came with an outstanding pineapple habanero salsa. Sandy had a huge pile of boneless wings. Both plates were only 200 pesos ($12 USD) and we had some good dark beers for only 80 pesos ($4.80) each. Padre Santo is definitely worth a stop, but they don’t open until 4 PM, so it’s not very convenient if not staying in Santa Rosalía. In Mulegé, we had a great lunch at Los Equipales. The meal started with a small bowl of lentils, followed by our main dishes – garlic scallops for Sandy and garlic fish for me – along with a baked potato, bread, and a salad. Including drinks and tip, this meal was a bargain at 620 pesos ($37 USD). We also enjoyed our stop at Carlos’ Racing Bar, a basic dive bar just down the road from our casita. The food and drinks were good and priced fairly.

Similar to other coastal towns in the Baja peninsula, Mulegé has a good number of expats. Most seemed to be seasonal residents, heading home when the weather gets hot in the summer. Our hosts live most of the year in Mexico, but return to Washington each year. They are pretty involved in town, and we attended a small event for the local dog rescue on our last night in town. Admission was one bottle of wine, which was then resold to attendees as a fundraiser for 100 pesos per glass. It looked to be a nice event, and it was good to see such a large number of expats supporting the local charity.

Continuing our small-town trend, our visit to Mulegé was also a bit over budget. I already mentioned our lodging. Overall food costs in Mulegé were below average, but we blew our opportunity to take advantage of that when we bought higher-cost craft beers at two breweries and some mixed drinks at the bar down the street, averaging $44 per day for all food and drinks. Our real budget-buster was the cave painting tour.

We continue to enjoy visiting these small Baja towns, but they feel too small for an extended stay. We are definitely happy that we’re getting to stop and explore these towns, and travel through the peninsula at a slower pace, but we’re concluding that we enjoy small cities rather than small towns.

San Ignacio

Next on our small-town Baja tour – San Ignacio. We learned about this town when researching the locations of historic Baja missions and had planned to make a short stop here on our way by. When talking with friends in San Felipe last year, we got a number of positive reviews and decided to stay overnight to better explore the town.

When researching lodging, there are a handful of places shown on Google maps, but limited descriptions of amenities, links to web sites, or even contact information. So, once again, we found our booking through Airbnb. Upon arrival, we had our first-ever hiccup with an Airbnb booking. First, we were asked to wait a bit while they finished cleaning the apartment. About 20 minutes later, around 2:30 PM, our host found us and asked if we wanted to see the similar apartment next door. It turns out that the previous guests hadn’t actually checked out yet! The alternative apartment looked fine, so we took it for our short stay. Similar to our original booking, it had all of the basics – beds, couch, wifi, TV, and mini-fridge. Good enough, though nothing special.

The highlight of our apartment is that it was right on the town square. We had a great view of town and it was easy to walk to anything we needed. San Ignacio was very quiet at night, and the area was well-lit so we had no concerns about parking our car on the street. Walking Gunner around the square and taking him outside at night was very convenient and easy.

San Ignacio mission

A nicely-restored Baja mission is San Ignacio’s main attraction. We toured the Misión de San Ignacio de Kadakaamán, including its grounds and garden. We also enjoyed sitting in the town square, as did many of the locals and some other tourists. The following morning, we toured a small, free museum focused on cave paintings in the area. We didn’t learn much from the few exhibits, and were glad that we got to see the real-deal while in Loreto and Mulegé. We also learned that San Ignacio is a good spot to arrange grey whale tours. Apparently, there is a lagoon about an hour away where the whales like to swim. We didn’t know about these tours until after we made our travel reservations, so we’ll save the San Ignacio whales for a future visit.

As a small town, food options in San Ignacio are limited. We had a reasonable dinner at Rancho Grande next to our apartment, and breakfast across the street at a small lonchería. We enjoyed our hot breakfast because it’s rare for us to go out to eat in the morning, and we found it easier than unpacking all of our food and dishes from the car for a single night stay. Both of our meals were decent and reasonably priced, but neither was particularly special. We also saw some local vendors selling handmade treats. Most included dates, locally grown on the date palms scattered throughout the small valley. We bought a good empanada and some unfortunately-dry, but decent-tasting date bread. We noticed a fair number of other foreigners touring the town, most often while sitting at the restaurants. Most appeared to be from the U.S., but we also overheard some Italian being spoken on a few occasions.

Total costs in San Ignacio were above average for our small-town tour. We spent $103 on our 1-night stay, and $81 on food. Food costs were high because of the second meal out, plus we bought coffees for our road trip. We also had to fill up our gas tank, at a somewhat-higher price of 25 pesos per liter ($5.70 per gallon).

Overall, we agree with the recommendations that we were given, and thought that San Ignacio was a nice small town and worth the stop. We would happily stop there again for an overnight stay, or perhaps longer to include a grey whale tour. Otherwise, the town is very small, and we really can’t imagine staying for more than a few days.

Guerrero Negro

Leaving San Ignacio, we only had a 2-hour drive to Guerrero Negro, so we tentatively planned a side trip to see yet another Baja mission. When we got to the turnoff, there was a military checkpoint set up, checking vehicles in both directions. The young officer was quite nice, and after asking about our trip and sending us on our way, I asked him if he knew about the road to the mission. He warned that it was in bad shape, and he had gone out there in an ATV, but didn’t recommend that we go in our car. We looked down the rutted dirt road, and continued north. We tried a second road 20 miles later, but decided once again to bypass the mission and go to town. As a result, we got to Guerrero Negro much earlier than planned. Lucky for us, the Hotel Terrasal let us check in early.

When we traveled south in November, we stopped for one night in Guerrero Negro at the Halfway Inn. It was a nice, hacienda style hotel, but the wifi was very weak in our room, and the parking lot was open to the highway. We didn’t have any real problems, but thought we’d try a different spot to compare. The Hotel Terrasal is newer, with modern furnishings and a private parking lot. The wifi there is also weak in the rooms, the doors are sliding glass (so they didn’t seem super-secure), and there are no refrigerators in the room. Without a refrigerator, we bought bagged ice to put in our small cooler with milk, beer, and water. We could walk Gunner around the hotel parking lot, but there weren’t any sidewalks along the highway to take him for a longer walk towards town. Neither hotel that we stayed at was really “in town”, so we had to drive for groceries, restaurants, etc.

On our trip south, we didn’t feel that there was much to see in Guerrero Negro – except for whale tours. As we planned our itinerary north, we thought it would be fun to take one more grey whale tour, so we reserved 3 nights there to give us 2 full days for a bit of flexibility for our tour. We were able to arrange our tour directly through the hotel, which worked very well, though we were concerned that it would only include 2 hours on the water. We were picked up at 8am, then went to a few other stops picking up other tourists, before heading on a 45-minute van ride south across some barren salt flats to the coast. Once there, we were loaded into the back of a pickup truck and driven out to our boat – definitely a unique way for boarding! The tours in Guerrero Negro were very different from San Carlos – here they loaded 19 people into our boat, compared to the 7 we had in our previous grey whale tour. We headed out into the local bay – the Ojo de Liebre – and our concerns about the short tour quickly went away. We saw whales almost immediately and were able to get alongside a cow and calf within the first 30 minutes. We stayed with the pair for at least 45 minutes, which gave everyone plenty of time to pet the whales and get up-close photos. We then headed off looking for more whales, and soon picked up another cow/calf pair, which we stayed with for about 20 minutes before heading back to land. Once back on shore, our van driver provided us a sandwich and snacks before starting our drive back to town. Along the way, we stopped at some salt-water filled pools and got a short explanation about the salt formations and the thermal waters in the area. Overall, we really enjoyed the tour and the large amount of time we had up-close with the whales. The tour was also very affordable – 950 pesos ($57 USD) each, and I also tipped our boat captain and van driver a total of 300 pesos ($18 USD).

Grey whale calf by our boat

Salt water pool

Since we had a second day in Guerrero Negro, and because we had such a good time on our tour, we thought about scheduling a second tour. Instead, we opted for a free local museum of salt, land, and sea. I had expected to learn a bit about salt formations and the active salt mining, but we instead found exhibits primarily focused on grey whales. We enjoyed the new information that we learned and thought it was a nice stop in town that we hadn’t noticed on our first time there.

We found a couple of really good food spots in Guerrero Negro. On our first day, we ate at a food truck labeled “Tony’s Tacos” on the truck, and “Tacos El Muelle” on Google maps. The truck had a small menu – fish tacos or shrimp tacos – served Baja style. These were certainly some of the best Baja tacos we found during our exploration of the peninsula, and quite reasonable at only 40 pesos ($2.40 USD) each. Including drinks, we both ate our fill for about $22 USD. On another day, we ate at Birriería Brianda, where we enjoyed a nice bowl of beef birria and some “quesabirrias” – quesadillas stuffed with birria meat, again eating for about $22 USD including drinks and tip.

Other than the whales, Guerrero Negro is not a huge tourist destination. Consequently, our hotel was reasonably priced, at only 1,150 pesos ($69 USD) per night, with no additional fee for Gunner. (By comparison, our hotel last fall was $61 per night.) We saw a few nicer, sit-down restaurants in town, but were very happy with our local street food, averaging $31 per day for meals, drinks, and some groceries for breakfast. All-in, Guerrero Negro was one of the most affordable stops on our journey north.

Expats are everywhere in the Baja peninsula, and we also saw quite a few in Guerrero Negro. Most of the Americans and Canadians that we met were at our hotel – staying one night and continuing on their journeys north or south. We also saw a couple of expats on our whale tour, including one man from Scotland that we talked to quite a bit. Another woman on our tour apparently lived in Guerrero Negro, but we didn’t get a chance to talk to her – in fact, she had arranged a few nights of lodging in a tent at the coast so she could take some daily whale tours over the next few mornings.

The weather was a bit warmer in Guerrero Negro - typically in the low 80s in the afternoon, dropping into the 60s over night. We did get a bit of rain during our visit, but overall, our travels north have continued to give us very nice weather for enjoying the outdoors or walking Gunner.

Guerrero Negro had possibly our favorite whale tour from the past three years exploring Mexico. We had lots of up-close time with the whales, and the tour and hotel were an overall great value. If traveling the peninsula during whale season, we would definitely consider stopping for a few nights again, knowing that there’s really not much to see or do outside of the whale tours.

Bahiá de Los Ángeles

Heading on from Guerrero Negro, we had one more stop planned for the east side of the peninsula on the Sea of Cortez – the small fishing town of Bahiá de Los Ángeles. The town is very popular as a fishing destination, especially for people coming south from San Felipe. We originally planned six nights here, but learned from some pre-travel research that the gas station occasionally runs out of fuel, there is no reported cell phone service, and there’s no ATM in town. We shortened our visit to three nights, and enjoyed our short visit to this remote town.

Our trip started with a bit of a headache. We had learned about a Baja mission about 1 ½ hours from Bahiá de Los Ángeles, and had planned to visit the mission on one of our days in town. We later learned that this access road had been torn up by Hurricane Hilary. People instead talked about accessing the mission from the west side, which would be along our planned travel route, so we left our hotel in Guerrero Negro at 10 AM, leaving plenty of time for our side trip to the mission during our drive

Approaching the tiny town of Nuevo Rosarito, we left the paved highway for a two-lane gravel road, and thought that the trip to the mission wouldn’t be too bad. After a couple of miles, the gravel road developed into a rougher, wash-boarded road. After another couple of miles, the road narrowed to a single lane and started getting rockier. Basically, the farther we went, the more the road degraded, but in our minds, we were getting closer and closer to our destination, and we didn’t want to turn around. Realistically, we should have abandoned our trip to the mission, but we persevered through narrow, rutted roads, which were overgrown with cactus and shrubs in the final two miles. We got a lot of light scratches, but didn’t do any immediate mechanical damage to our car, and we are hoping that there’s not anything lingering to surprise us over the next few months (there are a couple of funny new sounds that we’re wondering about).

After our 2 ½ hour off-road adventure, we were rewarded with a nice view of the beautifully-restored Misión San Francisco Borja. We met a local man, José, whose family had done most of the restoration. José now spends his days meeting travelers and giving tours of the mission. Because we had Gunner, José actually gave two tours – first to Sandy, then to me. The mission is very well-kept, with lots of attention to detail in the stone work and historic relics, but it is rarely used for services or celebrations, so there are no real pews, lights, or modern amenities. Additionally, there are some preserved ruins of the original adobe structure out back. Overall, it’s a very interesting site, but Sandy and I agreed that we would not make the drive again unless we had a vehicle with high-clearance (truck or Jeep). José did not charge for the tour, but we gave him 200 pesos ($12 USD) for his time and knowledge. He asked us for a soda or juice, but unfortunately, we didn’t have any to give him.

Mission San Francisco Borja

"Lion's paw" ceiling and Jose

After another 2 ½ hours back to the highway, we still had 1 ½ hours to drive to Bahiá de Los Ángeles. We arrived around 5 PM, and navigated our way down a bumpy, rocky street to our hotel – the Motel Princess Familiar. Our motel was a nice, family-run place, with two beds, attached bathroom, TV, wifi, and mini-fridge. The TV had a satellite package, but we discovered the wifi was Starlink, relatively fast, and we used our Kindle Fire Stick to stream our favorite shows instead of using the satellite. We were a bit surprised at the high nightly rate – 1,300 pesos ($79 USD), plus 200 pesos ($12 USD) for Gunner, and a 4.5% credit card fee. We have only seen a few places explicitly add an extra charge to cover the credit card fees, and this was the first hotel to do so. We had hoped to be able to walk Gunner near our hotel, but found the neighborhood full of stray dogs and therefore not good. Overall, we would rate our hotel as “just ok” - at the time we booked, it was the only hotel that 1) had a fair number of google reviews, 2) was pet-friendly, and 3) had a web site for booking. During our later exploration of town, we found another hotel, the Costa del Sol, right on the main (paved) road with wide sidewalks, and a sign saying they’re pet friendly. If we return to Bahiá de Los Ángeles, I think I’ll give this place a call.

Fearful of the reports of the local gas station running out of fuel, our first stop the next day was at the lone station in town. As I pulled in, there were no workers at the pump – uh oh. Other than Costco, every gas station we've been to in Mexico has been full service. Imagine my surprise when I walked inside and the clerk explained to me that I needed to pump my own gas, then come back inside to pay. I guess they don’t have any problems with drive-aways…. Maybe you recall from earlier blogs, but getting ripped off by gas station attendants happens enough in Mexico that the safest option is to request a fixed amount of fuel, based on total cost, then pay in cash with exact change. So normally, I estimate how many gallons I think we need, multiply by 100, and ask for that many pesos of gas. (The math generally works out because gas is 22-25 pesos per liter, a liter is close to a quart, and there are four quarts to a gallon.) I always round down, and sometimes we unfortunately drive away with the tank only ¾ full. But after our 5-hour side trip, we needed gas, and for the first time since Cabo San Lucas, we were able to fully fill our gas tank - at 26 pesos per liter, for the cray-cray total of 1,202 pesos ($72.50 USD)! Yikes!

The small town of Bahiá de Los Ángeles really only has the basics – a few small markets, a handful of restaurants, and the single working gas station. There is one road that heads north along the coast out of town towards Playa Gringa. Along the way, it passes a number of larger properties, including some RV parks – basically an area catering to expats and gringos. We went out to Playa Gringa on our first full day in town. The water is very calm, the beach was home to a handful of campers, and Sandy was able to find a few nice shells.

Playa Gringa

Sea shell and animal exhibit

On our second day in town, we explored the local museum. The majority of the space features a very nice collection of shells and preserved marine animals and skeletons. There is also a small vaquero (cowboy) section, as well as a corner dedicated to the town’s development and the local mining history. Overall, we spent about an hour in the museum, followed by a short walk through the city park next door. The museum operates on donations, so we gave them 100 pesos ($6 USD) for our self-guided tour.

With a mini-fridge in our room, we continued to eat cereal, fruit, and milk for breakfast – restocking on these items before leaving Guerrero Negro. For lunch/dinner, the restaurants in Bahiá de Los Ángeles were very simple and had some decent food. Our first night in town, we went to Alejandrina’s, where Sandy had chicken burritos and I had fish Veracruzana. Sandy thought her meal was so-so, but I thought my fish was as good as any Veracruzana that I’ve had in Mexico. The prices were also very reasonable for a small town, far away from any large grocery stores or easy sources of ingredients – only 430 pesos ($26 USD) for our meal, drinks, and tip. On our last day, we had lunch at a seaside bar and grill called Guillermo’s. We splurged there – in addition to our chicken taco plate and Mexican combo plate (with a good chile relleno), we started our meal with an order of chips and guacamole. That, plus some exceptionally slow service, resulted in us having two beers each, so the meal ended up at 775 pesos ($46 USD), which is actually not too bad given the amount of food and drink. Before leaving town the next morning, we found a nice coffee bar, and got a couple of (extra-small) cappuccinos at an obviously gringo café for 60 pesos ($3.60 USD) each.

Typical for the Baja peninsula, we saw a fair number of expats mixed in with the locals. The museum was owned/operated by an expat, and she had a friend helping her while we were there. Based on license plates, most of the campers at Playa Gringa appeared to be from the U.S. The coffee shop was packed with gringos when I picked up our drinks in the morning, and the prices on the menu implied that most of the customers were probably expats, willing to pay inflated prices for a back-home experience.

Though initially a little nervous about the tiny fishing town, we easily survived our three-night stay in Bahiá de Los Ángeles. There was a strong wind storm on our last night, which ended up knocking out power to the hotel. The owner fired up his generator and was quite proud to let me know the internet was back online. The small generator was only connected to his main house, so nothing else was available in the rooms. Upon asking, they made me a cup of coffee, and also hooked up their water pump to the backup power so we could shower. The owner responded well to the situation, and we don’t hold any of the power/water issues against them.

Our stay in Bahiá de Los Ángeles was expensive for the experience. Our hotel was overpriced, at a total cost of $93 USD per night, though the food costs were very reasonable, averaging $34 per day, even with our splurge at Guillermo’s. Our only entertainment cost was the $6 donation we gave to the museum.

Temperatures were moderate and comfortable in Bahiá de Los Ángeles. Other than the overnight wind, it was quite nice to be out-and-about. Bahiá de Los Ángeles is a small, quiet town, and we can see why it appeals to some expats looking for a simple, cheap lifestyle. We agreed that we could possibly live there for up to a week, but would quickly miss the variety of restaurants and grocery items that we typically live on. We don’t regret heading out to this remote fishing town, but we don’t expect to return. The fishing is reportedly very good, so you never know!

El Rosario

Driving from Bahiá de Los Ángeles to Ensenada could be done in a long day, but we opted to split the drive over two days, with an overnight in El Rosario, close to the Pacific coast. There are a few Baja mission sites along the route to Ensenada, though all of these sites are now just preserved ruins, not restored churches.

Mission ruins in El Rosario

After our experience driving to Misión San Francisco Borja, we tried to learn from our mistake, and quickly abandoned our side-trip to the first mission site due to the road conditions. The second mission site was on the east end of El Rosario and accessible by paved roads. Unfortunately, the site had faded signs and was overgrown with grass. We took a quick walk through the area, but overall were not impressed. El Rosario is a self-proclaimed “town with two missions” so we continued through town, in search of the next mission site on the west side of town. However, there had been some recent rains, the road was flooded, and there is no bridge to the other side of town. Some people were driving through the muddy water, but still thinking about our trip to Borja, we decided to turn around and head to our hotel.

For lodging, we had picked out the Baja Cactus hotel based on recommendations on Facebook and in Google Maps. Upon arrival, I was worried that the hotel was under renovation because of the appearance in the front. I drove around back, looking for an office, and found a woman out walking her dogs. She told me not to be concerned, that the rooms are very nice, and that they stay there every year when traveling north and south. She was right – our room was furnished with nice oak furniture, including a large, comfortable poster bed, as well as satellite TV and wifi. (The wifi was weak, but we’re getting used to that when we stay in hotels.) The room didn’t have a refrigerator, but we had planned to eat breakfast in a restaurant, similar to our one-night stay in San Ignacio, so that wasn’t really a concern. Compared to the other stops on our trip north, the room was a bargain at 850 pesos ($51 USD), with no extra charges for Gunner.

We learned that the rough exterior of our hotel is because they are in the process of slowly building a restaurant. Without one on site, we walked to the hotel/restaurant next door, and had a reasonable dinner of bistec ranchero stew and chipotle shrimp tacos, a bit overpriced at 620 pesos ($37 USD) including drinks and tip. With limited options, we returned to the same spot in the morning for Mexican eggs and coffee, again overpriced at 450 pesos ($27 USD). With a half-day’s drive ahead of us, we got gas before leaving town, adding 600 pesos ($36 USD) to our tank.

El Rosario didn’t appear to have much for attractions, and the only expats we saw were traveling through at the hotel and restaurant. We didn’t see any reason to stick around for additional days, but we would stay at the Baja Cactus again if we were passing through.

Our small-town summary

With our small-town travel complete, we concluded that there were some places that we liked and others that we didn’t care for. Overall, none of the towns appealed to us for long-term stays for future travels, and we’re learning that we prefer larger towns and smaller cities, and appreciate a variety of restaurants and grocery options. If traveling through the Baja peninsula again, we would consider stopping and staying in:

• Posada Concepción – loved the area, views, and water, but expensive; 10-20 nights max

• Mulegé – interesting and relaxing area; 7-10 nights max

• San Ignacio – overnight unlikely, but would consider 2-3 nights for a whale tour

• Guerrero Negro – overnight if traveling through, or 2-3 nights for a whale tour

• Bahiá de Los Ángeles – relaxing, remote and limited amenities; not likely to return

• El Rosario – overnight if traveling through
  

We made reservations in advance for our entire trip, but this probably wasn’t necessary. I am glad that we had them for Posada Concepción and Mulegé, where lodging seemed more limited, but I am pretty sure that we could have found a hotel room at the rest of our stops without any issues. That is something that we could keep in mind for increased flexibility on a future trip.

We also concluded that the western route that we took north through El Rosario has different challenges compared to the eastern route through San Felipe that we used to travel south last fall. There are many more small towns on the western side, with much more slowing down or stopping while passing through each town. But we also felt that the roads were in generally better shape, with less potholes to avoid compared to the San Felipe route. Overall, though, Sandy and I preferred the San Felipe side, and would likely take the eastern route if driving north/south through Baja California in the future.

Gunner did as well as could be expected on this trip. He generally hates moving, so changing locations every few days can be rough on him. Each of our locations had its own challenges as well - whether finding a good route to walk, or avoiding too many stairs, which have gotten harder for him to go up/down. Realistically, none of our lodging choices worked out great for him, and we always had some sort of compromise.

As we expected prior to our travels, one downside to moving quickly is that we don’t get great lodging rates and we end up spending a lot on travel (gasoline). Over 17 days, we spent $227 on gas (approx. twice our typical rate for relocation and general driving around), $750 on food (average $44 per day vs budget of $41), and $2,200 on lodging (average of $130 per night vs. a budget of $70 per night). We have to keep in mind that almost half of our lodging cost was for our 4 nights in Posada Concepción – without these four nights, the average drops to about $94 per night, which isn’t too bad for a series of short-term stays. We also noticed that gas prices were higher than average along our route – 23 pesos per liter ($5.25 USD per gallon) in Cabo and La Paz went up to 25-26 pesos per liter ($5.71-$5.95 per gallon) along our trip, before falling to 21-22 pesos per liter ($4.80-$5.02 per gallon) in Ensenada. We also busted our entertainment budget, spending almost $500 on tours vs. a budget of $170 – really just compressing our fun into a shorter amount of time. We think we’ll make up for most of our excess spend in Ensenada, where we have less-expensive lodging and are not currently planning a lot of “touristy” outings.